


Of All the Gin Joints and All That

by magicalmolly



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Fandom
Genre: F/F, F/M, beetlejuice goes hawaiian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:35:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26688265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicalmolly/pseuds/magicalmolly
Summary: The year is 1993, Lydia is twenty-two and fresh out of college with a photography degree. She's landed a job in a small town on a small island in Hawaii working as a photographer for a local newspaper. She spends all day at work and goes out every night to avoid the painful silence that hangs between her and her father, Charles Deetz, in the apartment they're sharing for the summer. One night she's goes to an underground punk rock club to take photos of the band when she meets Danny and they have an immediate connection. But there are many spirits loose on this island and the past and the present may finally be about to collide like waves crashing down on the shore.Sometimes ghosts are not the only things that haunt us.
Relationships: Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz, Beetlejuice/Lydia, Beetlejuice/Lydia Deetz
Comments: 34
Kudos: 67





	1. There Were Three

**Author's Note:**

> I am a HUGE fan of the unmade sequel to Beetlejuice (1988), and that is Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. It is no way an anywhere near 'perfect' screenplay, but I think if it had gotten the chance to go through more rounds of edits it could've actually been something pretty wonderfully, oddly, bizarrely spectacular. There are elements of it I really love same as there are elements from earlier drafts of the original movie scripts that I really love. This fic is me bringing all of those elements that got lost in the edits and lost in time together to make my own UNOFFICIAL sequel to one of my favorite stories of all time. 
> 
> While this fic is 99% set in the movie-verse, elements of the musical-verse do come into play. 
> 
> I HOPE YOU ENJOY! 
> 
> *new chapters every week*

_“You’re so beautiful. And I’m so miserable.”_

_-Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian_

Lydia heard a wave crash against the sand as she entered Charles’s study. 

“Dad, I’m going out.”  


“Where?” Charles Deetz asked without looking up from his laptop and without actually showing any genuine interest in Lydia’s answer, he just knew it was what a parent was _supposed_ to ask. But Lydia was twenty-two now, and truth be told Charles had lost interest in his daughter several years ago if he’d ever had it at all. Her macabre appearance and interests, her sullen attitude that he refused to accept as ‘depression’ because he didn’t _believe_ in mental illness, and the fact that she would never let go of what happened in Winter River all those years ago put him on an edge that terrified him. He sometimes wished her mother was still alive so that he could foist Lydia off onto her. But now, it being just him and Lydia in their new apartment in Hawaii he always felt her lurking as if she were a ghost haunting him. 

Delia was away on an artists retreat in Europe all summer and had told Charles to take a vacation. They’d moved back to New York after the… _events_ of years passed and the hustle and bustle of big city life was getting to Charles, so he’d taken Delia’s suggestion. However Lydia had just graduated college and by some odd twist of fate her first photography entry-level position was at the local paper in the small town on the island he’d chosen to spend the summer. Delia had all but shoved Lydia through the door, insisting it would be good for both of them to spend the summer together.

It had not.

The summer was now coming to a close and Lydia had been gone all day for work and out every night gods’ know where. Tonight would be no different.

“Out with some girls from work. A place in town.”  


“Alright, have fun.”

Lydia swallowed a sigh at her dad’s internal indifference and turned to leave. Charles breathed a sigh of relief as she did. 

* * *

Lydia was in fact _not_ out with girls from work and the ‘place in town’ was a small, underground punk rock club she’d seen a flyer for at a coffee shop. There was no sign just an old door in an alley spray-painted with various pieces of art. Lydia hoped this wasn’t the beginning of a true crime story in the making as she pushed the door open and slipped inside. But sure enough it was the club as advertised. Dingy and smoky, the floor sticky with spilled drinks and even the scent of coffee beans from late night lattes and mugs of black coffee scented the air. Lydia was in love. She made her way to the bar, ordered a rum and coke and then descended into the crowd.

* * *

“Well I’ll be damned,” he muttered under his breath.

“What was that, honey?” Purred the woman in his lap.

He all but dropped the girl to the floor. “Excuse me, doll. An old friend just walked in, gotta go say hello.”

The woman grumbled but didn’t stop him. He made his way into the crowd, stalking her like the prey she had once been. He took in her older appearance, wondering how much time had passed here above and wondering how the gothic beauty had ended up in Hawaii, on this island, in this neighborhood, in _this_ bar. “Of all the gin joints and all that,” he said to himself with a laugh. 

He paused to observe her as she made her way nearer to the stage, snapping photos as she went. He smiled. _Gods,_ he thought, _I actually missed her._ But as eager as he was to talk to her again he wasn’t so sure she’d be as happy to see him as he was her.

* * *

“Hey, beautiful,” a voice behind her said loudly over the music. “Buy you a drink?”

Lydia turned around to see a man that could only be described in the cliche way of _tall, dark, and handsome,_ standing before her. He was in ripped black jeans, an old, ratty t-shirt with the movie poster for ‘The Exorcist’ on it, and his hair was a messy mop of black curls. His eyes were coal-lined and he had a small heart penned on by his left eye. He had an array of tattoos cluttered across his skin; a snake, a pentagram, a black candle, and many many more. 

“Hi,” Lydia said, trying to suss out the situation. 

She had grown into her skin over the years, found her confidence, and in a setting like this she was definitely seen as a more ‘conventionally’ attractive type to the masses than she would be out on the beach or the boardwalk or really anywhere in the ‘normal’ world. But she still didn’t feel anywhere near as stunning as half the girls she herself had been checking out since walking through the back alley door.

“Come here often?”  


Lydia smirked. “How original?”

The punk goth guy gave her a smirk right back, and held his arms out to the sides. “Best I can do, I’m afraid.”

She smiled a bit brighter. “Lydia.”  


“Danny. So, Lydia can I buy you a drink.” Lydia held up her half-drunk rum and coke and gave it a small shake. Danny chuckled “Next one?”

“Don’t wanna get a DUI on the way home.”  


“You walked here.”  


She narrowed her eyes a bit but her smile never wavered. “How on earth could you know that?” He pointed to her boots. They were muddy. Lydia looked down then back at him. “Maybe I parked really far away.”  


He smirked. “Maybe. So, next drink?”  


Lydia sipped her rum and coke. “Maybe. I’ll wait and see how you do.”  


He laughed, a louder, throatier sound this time. The sound felt familiar. She liked it.

“You from around here?”

Lydia shook her head. “New York.”  


“What brings ya all the way out to our little island then?”

“Work.”  


He gestured to the camera hanging around her neck. “You a photographer?”  


“I try to be.”  


“What’s the craziest thing you ever photographed?”  


Lydia didn’t hesitate in supplying her answer. “Ghosts.”

Danny raised his eyebrows in amusement. “Really? So you’ve seen the other side?”  


Lydia sipped more of her drink and nodded. “Yep. Lived in a haunted house when I was seventeen.”  


“Lots of spooks?”  


Lydia could tell her was mocking her. She rolled her eyes and made to move past him but he reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her. His touch felt more electric than it should. She stopped and looked up at him. His eyes were such a dark shade of grey that they looked almost black.

“You look familiar,” she said. “Your eyes, I fell like I’ve seen them before.”  


“In your dreams?”

She couldn’t help but relent into letting him hear her laugh. She pushed him playfully with her free hand and pulled her other arm from his grip in the process, stepping back a bit. He turned to face her. 

“Tell me about the ghosts.”  


“There were three.”  


“Three?”

She nodded. “A couple and a…poltergeist.”  


“What’s the difference between a regular ghost and a poltergeist?”  
Lydia fiddled with her camera strap, unsure exactly why she was suddenly feeling so nervous. She realized quickly it was because no one had ever _asked_ her to talk about what had happened in Winter River, they had simply all just told her not to. “A poltergeist is more powerful. They’re…the ghost with the most.”  


Danny smirked again. “And ya talked to these haunts?”

Lydia downed the rest of her drink. “I did.”

“So you’re a medium?”  


Lydia scoffed. “Oh yeah, I’m a psychic extraordinaire. So sorry I didn’t bring my tarot cards.” 

“I bet you actually _do_ own tarot cards.”

Lydia chewed on an ice cube from the bottom of her cup and narrowed her eyes again. “Maybe.” He laughed and she smiled, and for the first time in a long time she was enjoying herself. She wasn’t _happy_ exactly. Happiness is an emotion that is rare for people as sad as Lydia Deetz, but occasionally beautiful enjoyment of moments come along and distracts from that sadness. This was one of those moments.

“So,” Danny said, pointing at her drink, “another?”  


Lydia shook her head. “No. I’m a lightweight.”  


Danny laughed a bit again but not in a mocking way. “Ya smoke?”

“When I’m drinking.”  


“Come outside with me. I brought a pack.”  


“You could be a serial killer,” she said. But she said it with a smile that she knew was bordering on seductive. 

Danny took a step closer to her. Lydia didn’t back away. “You could be too.”  


“Statistically it’s more probable that you are.”  


“Ah, well you seem like a tough girl, and I’m a scrawny guy, you could fight me off.”

“Looks can be deceiving.”  


“Can they?”

Lydia studied his smoky grey eyes once more. She let her gaze quickly flit across the crowded room, it was loud. Initially Danny had practically shouted in her ear to get her attention. But now somehow they had descended to a normal volume and yet she could still hear him crystal clear as the club raged on around them. She set her sights back on him. 

“Lead the way.”  


Danny reached out and took her hand in his and began leading her to the door that lead into the alley. Once outside in the balmy night air Danny walked across to the opposite brick wall and leaned against it. He took out a pack of Newport 100s, lit one and then handed it out to Lydia. She moved towards him and plucked the cigarette from his hand. He lit his own. Then the two stared at each other for several long moments inbetween small plumes of smoke and silent night air.

“You think I don’t know a ghost when I see one?”

Danny paused with his cigarette halfway to his lips to take another drag. “What’s that?” He asked, trying to laugh her off.

“No one else in there could see you except me.”

“That’s crazy.”

She took another step closer. “And true. So what? Did you die in there back in the 80s from a drug overdose or something?”

He did his best to make his laugh sound easy. “The 80s weren’t that long ago.”  


“You’re still dressed like you’re from them.”  


“Maybe it’s just my style.”  


“Or maybe you’re dead and stuck in this outfit for all of eternity.”

“What?” He said with another playful laugh. “You don’t like it?”

Lydia took another slow and steady drag of her cigarette. “I never said that.” She let her mouth slip back into her previous borderline seductive smile. She saw Danny’s calm composure waver a bit at the sight of it.

“So when did you die, Danny?”  


“A long time ago.”

Lydia laughed a bit in disbelief. 

“What?” He asked.

“I knew you were a ghost I just didn’t think I’d be able to get you to admit it that easily.”  


He finished his cigarette and dropped the butt to the ground, crushing it beneath his heavy combat boot. “Well, you sure are confident in your abilities, Miss Psychic Extraordinaire.”  
Lydia took one last puff of her own cigarette, blowing the smoke directly into his face, he didn’t even flinch. “I try.”  


“Well, you succeed, babe.”  


Lydia dropped her cigarette to the ground as well, but then hesitated. Her entire body suddenly losing it’s languid ease and stiffening. True unease began to sink in. She turned her gaze back up from the now cigarette cluttered ground to Danny’s smokier eyes. 

“What did you just call me?”

He raised an eyebrow in question to her change in demeanor.

“Just now,” she said, her voice suddenly a bit softer, blending in easier with the quiet night.

“I called ya babe.”  


“Why?”  


He laughed yet again. “Didn’t know I needed a reason to. Would you prefer I call ya Lydia? I know some folks are particular about nicknames.”  
Lydia took a small step back from him. “What’s your favorite color?”

He tilted his heard a bit in amusement. “Black.”  


She shook her head. “No it isn’t.”  


He shook his head, still laughing and then reached out suddenly and grabbed her by her hips, pulling her flush against him. She gasped breathlessly from the swiftness of it all. 

“Red,” he said lowly, their faces only inches apart. “Like your lips.”  


Lydia couldn’t help but drop her gaze to study his own mouth. It took everything in her to drag them back up to stare once again into his eyes. “You wanna kiss me, Danny?”

He nodded. So Lydia leaned in and pressed her mouth to his. The kiss started out sweet and innocent enough but quickly morphed into hands tangled in hair and tongues in mouths and Lydia gasping and Danny stifling groans as he pulled Lydia close and she leaned into his longing. When they finally broke the kiss Lydia was still only mere centimeters away from his face as she whispered the following words almost directly into his mouth and down his throat.

“Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. _Beetlejuice.”_  



	2. Relax, kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is it really you?”
> 
> -Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian

Danny practically shoved Lydia off of him. She stumbled back and sure enough the tattooed, eyeliner clad punk rocker was no longer who was standing before her. The ratty grunge clothes had been replaced with a striped suit. The dark hair was now a light mossy green. But the _eyes_ —the eyes were the same. 

Lydia couldn’t help but smile, feeling triumphant that she’d guessed correctly and seemingly managed to catch the poltergeist off guard. 

Beetlejuice put his hands to his head, the feeling of being summoned was always jarring but it had only ever been this intense an experience once before—the first time Lydia had summoned him five years ago. When he had his bearings he lifted his head out of his hands to look at Lydia. Once his eyes landed on hers no longer under the guise of Danny, Lydia’s triumphant feeling began to fade and a long-ago familiar dread began to sink in. 

She stumbled back a few more steps and Beetlejuice chuckled. The slight rumble his laugh had carried as Danny now boomed with full-force. “Hiya, babe.”  


“What’re you doing here?”

“You summoned me.”  


“You know that’s not what I meant.”  


He smirked and juiced up another cigarette from thin air, pre-lit, and placed it between his teeth. “Then say what ya mean.”

Lydia clenched her fists by her sides to keep her hands from shaking. She hated that all these years later, all the work she’d put into growing into herself and gaining her confidence could begin to slowly slip away in the face of _him_. 

“What’re you doing in Hawaii?”  


He shrugged and took a drag of his cigarette. “Found a wormhole. Anything’s better than the waiting room.”  


“Is that where you were?”

“After your ghost mom shoved me down a sandworm’s throat? Yes, dollface, that’s where I was.”  


Lydia dug her nails so hard into her palms that she left little crescent moon-shaped indents. “For five years?”

“Huh,” he said. “It’s been that long? No wonder you look all grown up.”  


“I am.”

He raised his eyebrows, giving her a glimpse of his familiar dastardly grin. It used to haunt her nightmares, then the haunting morphed into something else; taking up residence in a part of her mind that was far from resembling a nightmare. She tried to push that thought away now.

“Are you now?” He asked, his voice was coy. “How old are ya, babe?” 

Lydia hesitated, though she wasn’t exactly sure why. “I’m twenty-two.”  


He made no attempt to hide how he dragged his gaze up and down her body, taking in every inch of her. Lydia stiffened again and did her best not to show any discomfort from his attentions. 

“You look good,” he said. “Better than before.”

“Did I look _bad_ before?”

He laughed again and leaned back against the brick wall. “No, of course not. You just looked scared.”  


“I wasn’t scared of you.”  


His laugh boomed louder, his amusement growing. Lydia felt her cheeks flush.

“Never said you were scared of me,” he shot her a knowing look and Lydia couldn’t help but glance away. 

In a matter of seconds Beetlejuice’s cigarette was gone and he’d crossed the alley to stand directly in front of her again. In his true form he towered over her much more than he had as Danny. He took her chin roughly in his hand and she gasped from the jolt of electricity she felt again at his touch. It had been strong when it was Danny touching her but now it was like a lightning bolt.

“You were afraid of a lot more than the big bad ghost in the attic.”  


Lydia quickly tried to hide her shock at him touching her in his real form. “You weren’t big _or_ bad.”  


He smirked. “Thought you said I was the ghost with the _most.”  
_

Lydia rolled her eyes and tried to pull her chin free, but he didn’t let go. The unease began to sink back in again realizing he was in fact much stronger than her. She had walked out of the club thinking she was following a lanky goth ghost boy out into the alley to smoke and was now alone at night with a powerful poltergeist who she had just stupidly summoned. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked in a taunting voice. “Ya think I’m gonna hurt ya?”

“I…” Lydia hesitated. “I honestly don’t know.”  


His smile fell and his grey eyes bore into her with a newfound intensity. “I won’t.”

“You’re hard to trust.”  


“So are you.” Lydia opened her mouth to protest but Beetlejuice didn’t let her. “Said you’d marry me, kid. We didn’t get to finish our ‘I dos’ before ya had your mommy sick a sandworm on me.

“Barbara isn’t my mom, and I didn’t tell her to ride in on a sandworm rodeo style.”  


“You let her.”

“How exactly would you have liked me to have _stopped_ her?”  


Beetlejuice’s smirk returned again. He’d seen snapshots and glimpses of Lydia’s feistiness five years ago, but now it was in full swing. He loved it. 

“If you’d said ‘I do’ when you were supposed to then it wouldn’t have gotten that far, now would it?” Lydia bit her lip and said nothing. “Ah, baby,” he growled, pushing her against the other alley wall and dropping his hand from her chin to around her throat. “You should let me do that.”  


“Stop touching me.”  


“You didn’t mind before,” he purred as he leaned in closer to her so that their faces were inches apart again.

“I thought you were someone else.”  


“Oh, I see,” he said sarcastically. “So you figured out it was me _after_ you had your tongue down my throat?”  


“I did not—” but before she could finish her sentence his mouth was on hers again. 

She cried out against his mouth as it collided with hers and she moved her hands up to push him away but he let go of her throat to catch both her hands in his and pin them back roughly against the bricks. Now in his true form his mouth tasted like cigarettes and coffee and rain. She tried to close her lips against his but his tongue fought its way through and soon enough Lydia couldn’t help but let go and they were kissing as intensely as they had been just a few minutes ago when he was wearing his another skin.

Beetlejuice broke the kiss first and left Lydia gasping. Her red lipstick was smeared across both their mouths and the ghoul grinned at her. Lydia opened her eyes to see his smug expression and glared at him which only made his smile widen. Lydia struggled against his grip but he wouldn’t let up.

“Relax, kid.”

“Don’t call me _kid.”  
_

“Oh, of course, _young lady.”  
_

She moved her leg to try and knee him in the groan but he blocked her jab by pressing his body against hers at full force, knocking the air out of her as he pinned her back against the wall again. 

“Let go,” she hissed.

“You gonna make me?”

“You know I can’t.” Lydia regretted the words as soon as she said them.

Beetlejuice’s expression shifted for a moment—just a moment—then was back to wearing his typical arrogant grin.

“You really are a stunner, babe. Wish I’d married ya. But you were just a _kid.”_ He chuckled and Lydia struggled against his grip again.

“I was _not_ a kid. I was seventeen”  


“You were young.”

“I was old enough for you.”  


“Ah, well,” he leaned in again but this time he moved his mouth to her neck and whispered in her ear, “we both know I don’t have any rules.”

“Stop doing that,” she snapped, trying to turn her face away from his.

“Stop doing what, babe?" He played dumb.

“Beetlejuice,” she said, firmly. 

His grip tightened on her wrists.“Don’t get any ideas.”

She turned her face back to meet his gaze. “Let go. Please.”  


The last word tasted sour coming out of her mouth and was startling for him to hear, but it was the most civil thing either of them had ever said to each other so he obliged, releasing his hold on her. But he didn’t step back so she was still penned in by his large body looming over her.

“Why’d you disguise yourself to talk to me? I would’ve been able to see you.”  


“I know that,” he said. “Didn’t think you’d kiss me if you knew it was me.”  


“Why do you even want to kiss me?”

He scoffed. “Don’t ask dumb questions, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid!”

He laughed again and without thinking reached out and snaked his arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him. She braced her hands up against his chest to try and push him away but he was too strong. 

“I’m serious,” she said. “Aren’t there any…I don’t know, ghost girls you’re into?”

“Course there is, but they ain’t you.”  


“What’s so special about me? You barely know me.”  


“You can see me.”

That gave Lydia pause. Her hands went still against his chest, her eyes remained locked on his. Four simple words and yet they felt more real than anything else he’d ever said to her. 

“Of course I can see you.”

He squeezed his arms tighter around her waist. “You know what I meant.”  


She narrowed her eyes viciously. “Say what you mean, Beetlejuice.”  


He practically growled as he pushed her back up against the wall.

“Stop throwing my name around.”

“Stop deserving it.”

He leaned down close to her face again but she turned away and he chuckled, ducking his head down further to bite her neck. She squirmed against his affections.

“Stop it.”  


“Why?’ He said, bitting her again. “You kissed me first, babe.”

Lydia huffed, having no good retort. She _had_ kissed him first and she was still trying to make sense of why she’d done it.

“You want me as badly as I want you.”  


She turned her head back to face him just as he licked the length of her throat causing her to shiver. He chuckled against her skin. He was infuriating. She hated how much she liked it.

“You don’t want me _badly_ you’re just bored. And you were bored back then. It was never about me.”

He pulled back to look at her. “Of course it was about you. You honestly believed marrying me would make me come alive?”


	3. Actual Empathy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know, you were pretty cute before, but now you’re one beautiful young lady. I mean that.”
> 
> -Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian

Lydia pushed him away and this time he let her, chuckling a bit as she did.

“What an insane thing to say.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Doesn’t make it any less true.”

“How can you say that? You don’t even know me.”

“You won’t let me.”

“You tried to marry me!”

He shrugged again. Lydia practically growled in frustration, which only made him laugh again.

“Stop laughing at me!”

“Stop being adorable.”

“Oh good god.”

Lydia moved to head back into the club, but he reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Hey, hey, wait.” 

Lydia stopped and turned back to face him. He wasn’t holding her in a vice like grip like he was just moments ago, she could easily tug her hand away. But she didn’t. 

“I’ll stop making fun of ya, okay?” Lydia said nothing, he sighed. “I ain’t lying. It was about you.”

“Why?”  


“I told ya, you’re the kind of person I can relate to.”

“How on earth is that true? I was seventeen when we met, you’re a demon from hell.”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. I’m a poltergeist. I was alive once too.” He began to move his thumb in small strokes against the inside of Lydia’s wrist and she did her best to not outwardly show how good it felt. It was calming. It was…sweet.

“Would you have helped the Maitlands if I didn’t agree to marry you?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions, babe. I ain’t the hero, of course I wouldn’t have.”

“Oh great, you’re really selling yourself here.”  


“They locked me back up and stopped you from saying my name.”  


“You turned into a snake and threw my dad off the second floor!”  


He scoffed. “Semantics.”

“You’re absurd.”  


“And you’re lonely.”  


“I…” Lydia was caught off guard. “I mean…no, I’m not.”

“You’re not a very good liar, Lydia Deetz. You were lonely then and you're lonely now, it’s painted across your face. Maybe the normies can’t see it, but I can. I told ya, I can relate to ya.”  


“How?”

“You wanted to get in and I…did. Get in that is. I wasn’t a whole lot older than you.”

An uneasy silence settled between them. Mixing in with the lingering scent of cigarette smoke. Lydia took a shaky breath, hoping he wasn’t saying what he so clearly was.

“You killed yourself?” The ghost nodded. “How?”

“You know ghosts look however they did when they died?” Lydia nodded this time. Beetlejuice released her wrist and she hated that she missed the feeling of his icy skin against hers. He reached up and undid his tie and then unbuttoned his collar to bare his throat to her. She felt a pang of sympathy for the ghoul as she took in the red gash all along his throat.

“So you don’t talk like that because you’re a smoker.”

He chuckled a bit again, but not in mockery of her, simply because he didn’t really know what to say. 

“No, babe.”

“Why’d you do it?”

“Same reason you wanted to.”

“I never told you my reason.”

“It was obvious, darling.”

Lydia bit her lip again and Beetlejuice had to fight the urge to step forward and take her in his arms again and claim her mouth with his own. To be the one to bite her lip.

“How old were you?”

“I don’t remember exactly. Thirty?”

“Okay, that’s simnifically older than seventeen.”

He rolled his eyes again. “I meant not much older than you are now.”  


“Well I’m not suicidal now.”  


“You’re always suicidal.”

“How could you know that? It’s…it’s not true. I’m fine.” She took a shaky breath, panicking as she felt tears begin to brim behind her lashes. Why was she crying? And in front of _him_ no less. “I’m _fine.”_  


He didn’t say anything, just studied her. His eyes were no longer mocking or mischievous but full of sorrow. Actual empathy. Something he hadn’t felt in centuries for anyone but her. He stepped forward and pulled her into his arms again. But this time it wasn’t ferocious and lustful, but gentle—kind. He wrapped his arms around her back and held her in his embrace and without thinking Lydia rested her head against his chest and before she knew it she was crying; her tears staining his suit.

He held her, tracing patterns up and down her back with one hand, and smoothing her hair down with the other. When her crying finally ceased Lydia began to feel embarrassed and tried to tug away from him again but he held her tightly.

“Let me go.”

“Why? So you can run away?” Lydia didn’t say anything. That was what she was planning to do. “It’s okay, you know,” he said. “To let people see you.”

“You’re not people.”  


He laughed. “True.”  


“Why’re you being so nice to me?”

“I ain’t nice, darling. You know that.”

Lydia realized that this was true. Attributing his borderline sexual assault in this back alley in the middle of the night could hardly be called ‘nice’ simply because it ended in a hug. Her mind filled with conflicting thoughts about how stupid this was; how morally grey, and problematic this whole encounter was. But she was also struggling to care about any of those logical arguments. He was right. She _was_ lonely, and sad, and suicidal and he was here, holding her, seeing her, _wanting her._

“Lydia,” he said, pulling her from her racing thoughts.

“What?”

“Come home with me.”

Lydia pulled away again and he let her. She took a nervous step back away from him. “No,” she said nervously. “I told you, we hardly know each other.”  


“How’s that going to change if you won’t let it?”

“What makes you think I _want_ to know you?”

“You said my name.”

His words struck her with the force of a baseball bat hitting a home run. He’d knocked it out of the park. She _did_ want to know him. Desperately. Entirely. He was the most intriguing person she’d ever encountered. The only one who seemed as dark as her. As… _sad_ as her. Now that she was standing her before him again after all these years, she knew she couldn’t just walk away from him. She’d regret it forever if she did.

“Okay,” she said softly.

“Okay?” He asked, trying to hide how eager he was. “You’ll come home with me?”

She nodded. “Yes.”


	4. Entirely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You’re always in a good mood."  
> "Happy as a clam. You know why?"  
> "Why?"  
> "Cause I get to do this."
> 
> -Beeltejuice Goes Hawaiian

Before Lydia could ask _where_ Beetlejuice’s home was, he grabbed her hand and they walked _through_ the brick wall. Lydia opened her mouth to scream, but being sucked into absolute darkness incarnate stole the sound from her mouth. When she was finally able to form sound the first thing she thought to say was “ _Beetlejuice!”_ But his hand clamped down firmly over her mouth. “Shhh, babe,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t throw the B-word around.”  


Lydia glared into the darkness, looking around tying to find his snake green eyes, but nothing but infinite blackness greeted her gaze. So she bit down on his palm. He laughed at her feistiness but didn’t remove his hand. “Hold on, babe, we’re almost there.” Beetlejuice lead them deeper into the darkness until they poured out into a small, dingy room. The walls were grey and covered with Elvis Presley posters. There was nothing but a bed, a couch, and a small TV in the sparse space. She pried at his arm to get him to move his hand from her mouth, and after laughing at her again, he did. “Where the hell are we?” She asked, stepping away from him.

“Home.”  


“And where is that exactly?”

“Well, at the moment,” he said, “my coffin.” Lydia’s eyes grew wide with a mix of horror and disgust. She felt panic begin to rise in her chest at the idea that they were trapped six feet under the ground and began to spin around, frantically searching for a door. Beetlejuice raced to her side and grabbed ahold of her by the shoulders. “Hey, hey, stop. It’s okay.”  


“It’s not okay we’re in a fucking coffin! I wouldn’t have agreed to come home with you if I had known that this is what _home_ is. I would’ve suggested we—” Lydia cut herself off, realizing she’d said too much.

Beetlejuice looked down at her, smirking. Her panic melted away to make room for embarrassment. “Suggested what, my sweet?”

She tried to shake off his grip on her, but of course he didn’t let her. “Come on, babe, what would your _suggestion_ have been?”

“Stop it. Nothing.”  


“Ah, ah,” he leaned in closer, backing her up against the wall. “Tell me.”

“A hotel okay? I would’ve suggested we go to a hotel.”  


Beetlejuice chuckled. Lydia shoved him, but he didn’t relent in his hold on her.

“Stop fucking laughing at me.”  


“Stop being funny.”

She shoved him again.

He kissed her. Lydia tried to bite him again, make him bleed. But he was a corpse and if she had thought biting was a way to make him get off of her, he was intent to show her that she was sorely mistaken. 

As she tried to bite down on his lower lip, the action only drew a lengthy growl from his throat and caused him to grind against her, reaching up and wrapping a hand around her throat. Lydia pulled back from the kiss, but his mouth followed her—possessing her. He wouldn’t let her get away from him, and deep down she didn’t want him to. 

“ _Beetle—”_ she gasped against his lips. He thrust against her, wedging a knee between her legs to keep them open and dropped his mouth down to her neck. “Don’t say my name,” he growled. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she said, leaning her head back against the coffin wall.

He smirked, then bit down on her shoulder and drew blood from her lovely, living body. Lydia screamed and bucked against him. He kept his hand firm against her throat, pushing her head back against the wall, forcing her to endure him. Lydia’s head was swimming. She wanted to tell herself that this was wrong—that it was assault. _But isn’t it a beautiful kind of assault,_ she thought to herself; one that her darker side wanted to give into.

“What would we have done in a hotel, darling?” He asked, licking the length of her throat, causing her whole body to shiver.

“Nothing.”  


He bit her again, she screamed again, hating how good the pain felt. He licked up her blood and kissed the freshly forming bruise. “Wrong answer. Try again, my love. What would we do in a hotel?”  


“Play backgammon.”  


He  moved his hand to rest against her inner thigh, lightly pinching the soft skin there. She yelped and he chuckled again—the sound infuriating her. 

“Cute,” he said, dragging his mouth back to hers and claiming it in yet another kiss. 

He forced her mouth apart, plunging his tongue inside and tangling it with hers. Lydia fought the urge to arch into him and moan into his mouth but the damn poltergeist made it impossible. It all just felt _too good._

“I’ll ask you one more time, babe, and you better give me the right answer.”  


He pulled back to meet her gaze, his hand still on her throat. Lydia was afraid of this game they were playing. Afraid of the fact that they were in a coffin six feet underground (and confused as to how that was even possible), but she was more afraid of him stopping. Of this feeling of being with him suddenly coming to an end. Whatever she was feeling right now wasn’t happiness, but it was a beautiful distraction from sadness. 

“What if I give you the wrong answer?”

He smiled devilishly. “Then I’ll have to punish you.”  


“How?” She breathed.

“That’s a surprise, darling. Now,” he leaned in, lightly squeezing her throat, making her gasp sharply. “What would we have done in a hotel?”

“Slept.”

He smirked again, and then his hand was gone from her throat and he was spinning her around so that she was facing the wall. She cried out from shock and then she felt his hand hit her backside— _hard_.

“Hey!” She tried to say more, looking back at him, but he leaned his whole body against her and growled in her ear. “Tell me what I want to hear—what you _want_ to say—and I’ll stop.”  


“Ever heard of consent?” She taunted, unable to hide her own growing smirk; giving into the game.

He nipped at her neck. “You’re asking a lot of a poltergeist, darling.”  


“If I’d said no to coming here, would you have let me walk away.”  


He spanked her again, harder this time, and she screamed again and he chuckled again. “Of course not,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you for years. I wasn’t gonna let you walk away.”

At that Lydia stilled. Beetlejuice noticed the change in her demeanor and immediately spun her back around to face him. Her face was devoid of the mischievous look of someone giving into a fantasy and was replaced with the familiar melancholy he’d seen in her eyes all those years ago.

“Lydia,” he said, and she realized that she loved the sound of her name in his mouth. “What’s wrong?”

“You were waiting for me?”

“Yes,” he said without missing a beat. “I wasn’t lying earlier. It’s about you. Always has been.”

“You want me?”  


He leaned in close again and whispered in her ear. “Entirely.”

Lydia was a lonely person. She felt unseen, invisible, ignored and forsaken everyday by everyone in her life. The only time anyone truly _saw_ her was the night she’d tried to kill herself. A silly little ghost, taunting her from a model town. _Begging_ her to help _him._ The idea that she had any power over anything was unfathomable to her back then, but he’d handed it to her, then cruelly taken it away in the shape of an ungodly tulle mess of a wedding dress. He’d stolen the sound from her throat and forced a ring on her finger. A perverted assailant. A suicide victim. A conman and a liar. And yet he was so much more than the Maitlands. So much more than the men and women she’d taken to bed in college. Because when he looked at her he didn’t see what he wished she would be, but who she was. And the sight didn’t make him look away.

To be adored is a powerful thing, and when you go so long without it, the first sip of it you get can get you drunk. Lydia felt drunk off of the way he was looking at her. The way he’d looked at her when he first saw her all those years ago. It hadn’t changed. He wanted her. It was vile, and wrong, and possessive and unhealthy and as damn near perfect as anything in this fucked up world can ever get.

“Then take me.”  


His green eyes lit up at those three little words and then he had her up in his arms and he was carrying her over to the bed against the far wall of the coffin room. He practically threw her down, climbing on top of her and capturing her mouth in a searing kiss. She willingly arched her back, pressing herself up into him and moaned into his mouth without trying to hide it. He smiled against her teeth as he began to grind against her. 

He trailed a hand down her chest, grazing her breasts, moving down her stomach, to rest between her legs. She tensed a bit at the touch. “Let me touch you,” he growled in her ear, his voice primal with want.

“Okay,” she breathed, shocked that he had even bothered to ask. 

He pulled up her dress and pushed aside her underwear. She gasped loudly when his icy fingers touched her. He kissed her neck as he began to _slowly_ move his fingers up and down her, testing her, teasing her. He continued like this for a torturously long time, never entering her.

“Stop it,” she hissed in agony.

He smirked, looking down at her. “Stop what? Touching ya?” He moved his hand and Lydia cried out, her stomach full of kindling dying to be set aflame. He dipped down and bit her neck, nuzzling in. “Oh no, baby, was that not what you wanted?”

“Stop teasing me. Please.”  


“Ah well, if you’re begging.”  


Lydia was about to tell him to fuck off, but then he plunged three fingers inside of her, and there was nothing gentle about it. She immediately wrapped her arms around his neck and screamed in pleasure against the delicious pressure of his fingers inside her and hand against her.

“Ain’t ya gonna thank me for giving ya what you want?” He taunted in her ear.

Lydia wanted to argue with him but she was seeing stars from how hard he was working her, his hand moving at a punishing pace. “Thank you,” she gasped.

He grinned at how easy it was to undo her and began to move his hand faster and faster, but right when she was about to finish he removed his hand. 

“Beetlejuice!”

He clamped a hand over her mouth. “Stop it, darling. You’ll ruin the fun.”  
She bit his hand again and this time he released her mouth, chuckling as he did.

“I asked you to stop teasing me.”  


“Ah, that’s right. You did. My bad. Let me make it better.”  


He ducked his head down and pressed a gentle kiss to her stomach, his icy lips coating her skin with goosebumps. He began to trail chilling kisses down her stomach until he came to rest between her legs.

“What do you want, Lydia?” He murmured, planting a kiss to her thigh.

“Kiss me,” she breathed.

He smirked at her choice in words and then he devoured her. Lydia moaned so loud she was sure everyone above ground could hear her. She saw every star in the night sky as he moved his tongue deeper inside her than anyone should be able to. He hit every spot just right and when he worked her over the edge she tangled her hand roughly in his hair and screamed again, arching her back and crying out his name. This time he let her.

As she rode the wave down she settled into the bed and Beetlejuice climbed back on top of her. “You’re not quitting on me already are ya, babe?”  
Lydia opened her star-soaked eyes and smiled up at him. “Of course not.”

“Good girl.”

He moved himself between her legs and without warning thrust forward, entering her completely. Lydia gasped again, her hands landing against his chest and tangling in the hair there. He groaned as he moved against her, closing his eyes and tilting his head back to give into the feeling. But Lydia dragged him back to the surface when she said: “Open your eyes.” Without understanding why, he opened his eyes, confused as to what she wanted. He glanced down at her. “Look at me,” she whispered. “Look at me when you fuck me.”

And just like that the crazy little goth had pulled another genuine smile from his lips. So he fucked her harder, keeping his eyes locked on hers the entire time. And when they finished they finished together. But instead of her screaming his name he pressed down on top of her and growled her name into her ear. “ _Lydia.”  
_ They finished and he rolled off of her to lay beside her in the bed. Before Lydia could ask what happens next, if she was supposed to go or not, the ghost was wrapping her up in his arms and pulled her flush against him.

“Beetlejuice?” She asked softly.

“Shhh, baby,” he murmured in her ear. “Go to sleep.”

She wanted to protest but she was so tired, and the stars she saw behind her eyes were so bright and it felt so good to be held by someone. So she closed her eyes and fell asleep in the arms of a ghost in a coffin far beneath the surface of the earth.


	5. Not a Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I want her!"
> 
> -Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian

Lydia woke up and rolled over in bed expecting to see the poltergeist, but she was alone. Not only that, she was in her own room in the apartment she shared with her father. She sat up in bed, startled. Confused. Devastated. 

“It was just a dream,” she mumbled.

But she didn’t remember walking home. She didn’t remember getting into bed. All she could see in her brain was him. In the alley. His hands on her body, his tongue in her mouth. And then his coffin that was impossibly a room. And his body on hers, his head between her thighs. How he felt inside of her. It all felt so _real._

Lydia shook her head, hating herself for a moment. She wasn’t sure why, it just felt wrong somehow to mourn a dream that a rational mind wouldn’t have dreamed in the first place. 

Lydia took a hot shower to try and wash away the memory of his mossy, earthy skin against hers and his tobacco-coated lips on hers. But it was no use, the dream stuck to her skin like glue.

Work was long and dreary, the hours dragging by. When closing time finally came round, Lydia did the only thing she could think of to avoid going home. She sat in a diner and ordered one cup of black coffee after another, flipping through an old copy of _Frankenstein._ After she’d been occupying the same booth for several hours and the moon was high in the sky, she decided it was time to bite the bullet and head home. 

Lydia got another cup of coffee to go, tucked her keys inbetween each knuckle and headed out on the long walk home. She stomped her feet as loudly as she could as she walked along the dark streets of the quiet town, hoping the action would put off any attackers; hoping the’d think her too noisy to take. But as she walked along she got the obvious sensation that someone was following her. She picked up her pace, but she kept seeing a shadow out of the corner of her eye. She was about to break out into a full on run when a voice called out to her from a nearby alley. A smoky voice that sounded like gravel under boots. A voice she’d know anywhere.

“Hey, babe.”

Lydia stopped and turned to look down the alley. Sure enough, the ghost with the most emerged from the shadows, a cocky grin on his face and a cigarette in his hand. 

Lydia clenched her key-clad hand into a fist and without a second thought, threw her coffee at him. Which he dodged with ease.

“You bastard! I thought it was a dream!”

“Ah, but not a nightmare.” He waggled his eyebrows at her and Lydia wished she had another coffee to throw. Instead she turned and began to stomp away. He chased after her, catching up to her with ease, slinging a heavy arm across her shoulders. “Hey, hey, what’s the big deal?”

Lydia ducked out from his arm and danced back a few steps away from him. “I woke up in my own bed, alone. I thought I imagined the whole thing. What the hell is wrong with you?”  


“Besides the obvious?” He smirked and Lydia glared, turning to leave again. He reached out and took her hand that wasn’t full of keys in his own, tugging her back to face him. 

“Hey, you freaked out about being in my coffin. I didn’t want you to wake up afraid. I didn’t think you’d think it was a dream.”

“Bullshit,” Lydia tugged on her hand but he wouldn’t let go. “You wanted to mess with me.”  


“No,” he tugged her closer, “I didn’t. Is it so hard to believe that I care about you?”

“Yes.”  


“Lydia,” he said, his voice as close to pleading as he was capable of. “Come on, I’m here now. Come home with me.”

“No.” Lydia tugged on her hand again and was able to pull it free. “Last night was a mistake.”

When she turned to walk away again, Beetlejuice wrapped his arms around her waist and dragged her into the alley. She cried out but he clamped a hand down over her mouth as he pressed her up against one of the brick walls, removing his hand from her mouth and caging her in with his arms.

“Why do you do that?” He asked.

“Do what?”

“Lie.”

“I’m not lying,” she said indignantly.

“Yes, you are. You and I both know you want me as much as I want you. So why do you deny it?”

“Oh please,” she scoffed. “You don’t want me. You want a distraction.”

“From being miserable? Yeah. I do. And that’s what you are for me. Is that so wrong? Don’t you want a distraction too? Aren’t you sick of being sad?”

“And what? You’re gonna save me from my sadness?”  


“You don’t need anyone to save you.”  


“Then what do you want?” She asked, her voice turning into a maddening plea for clarity. She felt like she was drowning, the ocean waves bogging her down even here on land. 

“You, you silly girl,” he said. “I want to _be_ with you. And I know you want me too. What good does it do to deny me? Does it make you feel powerful?”  


“No,” she said softly. “It makes me feel normal.”

He scoffed. “Well who wants that? The little miss strange and unusual I met in that attic years ago didn’t.”

“The girl you met wanted to be dead.”  


“And I wanted to be alive so I could be with her.”

“That’s not why you wanted to be alive!”

Beetlejuice dipped down and kissed her. Lydia froze from the surprise but then instinctively leaned into the kiss. Beetlejuice held her face in his hand, assaulting her mouth with a passion that rivaled the force of the sea itself. When he broke the kiss they were both panting even though only one of them needed to breathe.

“Stop this,” he said, resting his forehead against hers. “There’s no one here to judge you, so just let yourself give into what you want.” When Lydia said nothing he moved his mouth to her neck, biting her gently. Lydia sighed and felt herself reach up to hold onto his forearms. “Come on, Lydia,” he coaxed. “Be honest, do you want me to go?”

“No,” she whispered.

He moved his mouth to kiss the hollow of her throat, sending a shiver through her entire body. “Tell me what you want.”  


“I want you to stay,” she breathed.

“More.” Lydia said nothing and so he bit down on his favorite spot on her shoulder, causing her to whine, her voice bouncing off the alleyway walls. “Come on,” he practically growled against her skin. “Admit it.”  


“I want to go home with you.”

He pulled back to meet her gaze, his mischievous grin back again. “Good girl.”  
Then he picked her up and swung her over his shoulder. She squealed in surprise and then they were walking through the brick wall, back into the darkness.

Lydia cried out as the inky blackness engulfed the and Beetlejuice just chuckled at the sound. “ _Beetlejuice!”_ She cried out instinctively, but no sooner had the word left her lips then his hand came down hard on her ass.

“Hey! Stop it!”

“Stop saying my name.” She could hear the bemused smile in his words and it both infuriated her and excited her. 

The darkness gave way and the two were in a room that was very much _not_ his coffin. Beetlejuice set Lydia down and she slowly spun around taking in their surroundings. A king sized bed with red sheets. A minibar. A balcony where the curtains were blowing in with the nighttime breeze and Lydia could hear the ocean not far away. She turned back to face him. 

“Where are we?”  


He smirked. “A hotel room.”  


“Fucking bastard.”  


He moved closer to her and wrapped his hands around her waist, pulling her in close to him. “Ya gonna let me touch ya now or is this hard to get routine gonna last all night?”  


“You’re _asking_ if you can touch me now?”  


He smiled wider. “Thought you wanted a gentleman, babe.”  


Lydia tentatively reached up and placed her hands on the front of his jacket, grasping the lapels. “I never said that.”  


Beetlejuice raised his brows. “Oh no? Then what do ya want, babe.”

Lydia dragged her gaze up to meet his eyes. “You know the answer.”  


He leered down at her. “I know, but I wanna hear you say it.”  


“Bastard,” she muttered again. Just then he seized her wrists in his hands and held tight, tugging her as close as she could get, her body pressed against his. “Would it kill you to be a good girl, Lydia?”

She smirked this time. “Yes.”  


“Say it, babe. Say you want me.”

“No.”  


Beetlejuice pushed her back against the wall with a little squeak. His mouth was on hers as he dragged her hands up to be pinned above her on the wall. He wedged his knee between her legs to keep them apart and then he began to kiss down her throat and soon his hands were reaching around to unzip her dress. Lydia stiffened when she felt the zipper come down. 

“Relax, baby,” Beetlejuice murmured in her ear as he slid the dress off her shoulders. Lydia stood before him then in nothing but her bra and underwear. She fought the urge to cover herself with her hands as Beetlejuice took a step back to take her in. He drank in the sight of her, trying to get drunk off it. 

“Damn, babe,” he said, stepping back to her and pressing his body against hers. “You’re stunning.” His mouth descended to her collarbone as his hands roamed down her stomach and latched onto her hips, tilting her pelvis towards him. Lydia reached her hands up and knotted her fingers in his hair, leaning into him as he began to grind against her. 

He practically growled, his hands reaching back again to unclasp her bra, and again Lydia stiffened. He pulled back for a second to look at her. “Come on, babe,” he said lowly. 

“Let me look at you.”  


“You’re _asking?”_ She did her best to sound joking, but they both could hear the nerves in her voice.

Beetlejuice didn’t buy it, he kept his stare steady with hers. “Yes,” he said. “I’m asking.”  


It was the bare minimum anyone could do. Lydia knew it shouldn’t mean so much to her. Those three words. But they did. _It did._ The way he was looking at her, like he was a man lost in a desert dying of thirst and she was the last drop of water in his canteen; it emboldened her. She pushed off from the wall and reached behind herself and undid her bra, letting it slide down her arms and onto the floor. 

There was a stunned silence from the poltergeist as he stared at a sight he’d only been able to imagine for the past five years. She was gorgeous. He was in trouble.

“Lydia,” he exhaled. And then he was on her again. His hands groped her ass as his mouth went to her left breast, taking the nipple between his teeth and biting down. Lydia whimpered as he began to suck while using a hand to knead the other. He switched, moving his mouth to her right breast and repeating the motions, causing Lydia to rack with shivers. “ _Beetlejuice,”_ she whispered as the pleasure intensified. Under these circumstances, he did not fault her for saying his name.

He dropped to his knees before her and reached up to hook a finger under the waistband of her underwear. He looked up at Lydia, and she tilted her head down to keep her gaze locked on his. Without saying a word, he pulled her underwear down her legs and let her step out of them. He could see the goosebumps on her skin, see the nerves and excitement and caution in her eyes. 

He slid his hands up to grip her by the backs of her legs, keeping her in place. “Ya scared, babe?” He whispered. Lydia nodded. “Why?”

“Because,” she said softly, smiling weakly. “You can see me.”  


Beetlejuice grinned back up at her, one of his honest smiles that she realized she adored. It was devoid of his mischief or dastardly charm. There was no showmanship in it. It was honest. It was him.

“Don’t worry,” he said playfully. “I don’t bite.”

She smirked. “Liar.”  
He chuckled and then before she could respond again his head was between his thighs and his tongue was deep inside her. Lydia titled her head back against the wall and cried out as Beetlejuice’s nails dug into the soft flesh of the backs of her thighs and his mouth made a home between her legs. 

He worked his tongue in and out of her, sucking and kissing and licking her like she was his last meal. She whimpered and he thought it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. He felt her legs quivering against his hands, and he relished in his ability to do this to her. When he could tell she was about to come, he pulled back, jumping back to standing and bringing her mouth to his. She mewled against his mouth, panting out, “ _Fuck you.”_ He chuckled again. “Why’d you stop?” She begged, pulling back slightly to look up at him.

“Tell me what I want to hear and I’ll finish.”  


“Beetlejuice.”  


He pressed her back into the wall, kissing her again to shut her up. “Stop saying my name, babe and admit what I want you to so we can get on with it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lydia taunted.

“Very funny, dollface.” He kissed her one last time. “Tell me _what_ you _want.”  
_

Lydia held his gaze for a long, fiery, burning, agonizing moment before she finally gave in. “You, asshole,” she said. “I want you.”

He laughed. “I’m all yours.” Then he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. He practically threw her down as he began to climb on top of her.

“Wait,” Lydia said. “It’s not fair that I’m the only one who’s not dressed.”  


He paused and then gave her one of his dastardly smiles. “Alright, babe. Undress me, then.”

He stood back up, pulling Lydia up by her hands so that she was seated on the edge of the bed with him standing over her. He hooked a finger under her chin to tilt her gaze up to meet his again. “Scared, babe?”

“You wish.”

She got to her feet and unbuttoned his jacket, pushing it down his arms, letting him fling it aside. Then she undid his tie and began to unbutton his shirt. Her breath caught in her throat a moment when she saw the red welt again. Without thinking she leaned in and placed a gentle kiss against the forever scarred skin. Beetlejuice tensed at the touch but he didn’t push her away. She dared to trail her kisses a little lower, unbuttoning his shirt as she went. Years ago she would’ve worried that his skin would taste stale— _dead._ But everything about him tasted earthy, and sweet. Like sugar and coffee and rainstorms mixed into one. 

When she had his shirt unbuttoned, he slipped it off and tossed it aside to the ever growing pile of clothes on the floor. The two locked eyes again as she reached out for his belt buckle. He remained still, keeping his eyes on her as she undid the buckle and slipped the belt loose from the loops. She didn’t give herself time to get nervous all over again as she unzipped his pants and pushed them down. 

_Of course,_ she thought. _He doesn’t wear underwear._

She glanced back up at him. She’d known he was big, obviously she’d felt him inside of her. But seeing it was another thing entirely. She felt a fire stir in her stomach at the sight. He smirked. 

“Ya gonna let me fuck ya now, babe?”

Lydia smirked right back at him. “You’re asking?”  


He pushed her roughly back down to the bed and mounted her. “No,” he growled and she couldn’t help but laugh. He smiled at her again and then she reached up and wrapped her hands around his neck, pulling his mouth down to meet her own. 

He waisted no time in thrusting himself deep inside her, causing her to moan loudly and he basked in the sound. The two began to move together, slow and steady and then painfully fast and hard. “Look at me,” Lydia commanded as she had last night. 

Beetlejuice propped himself up so that he could look down and into her eyes. “Lydia,” he groaned. He thrusted against her one last time, the two of them coming together again. Lydia loosened her legs from where they’d become locked around his waist and let him roll off of her. 

The two lay in silence for a few moments before Beetlejuice reached out and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. She instinctively rested her head in the crook of his neck and hated how perfectly it fit there. He began to trace patterns along her spine, sending shiver after shiver throughout her entire body.

“What were you like when you were alive?” She asked softly.

He sighed. “Different.”

“Nicer?”  


He laughed. Lydia smiled against his chest.

“Do ya wish I was nicer?”  


“No,” she said, and she found that she meant it. “Nice is boring. Do you wish I was happier?”  


“No,” he said without missing a beat. “Happy people are infuriating.”  


Lydia laughed and he smiled, continuing to drag his nails lightly across her back.

“Did you ever fall in love?” She asked, her voice a bit quieter, the question more nerve wracking. “When you were alive, I mean.”  


There was a painfully long pause between them before Beetlejuice answered. “Yes,” he said. “I did. Once.”

“What were they like?”

“You.”  


Lydia rolled his eyes, even though her face was pressed against his chest and she knew he couldn’t see her. “Lame line. Try again.”  


He pulled back and reached out to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze again. “Babe,” he said, his own voice as gentle as it could be, “it’s not a line.”  


“What?” Lydia asked, confused.

“When I first saw you in the attic,” he said, “I knew I’d seen you before.”


	6. More Than All the Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He pulls out a photograph and gazes at it.”
> 
> -Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian

** _somewhere in Europe, 1391_ **

Lawrence Orion walked down the busy street, pulling his tattered coat tight around him. Just a few months ago the market had been coated in the scent of freshly baked bread and fine wines; bodies of lively folks in an array of colors filtering past. Now the only scent was that of decay and the only bodies were slumped on the ground waiting for the carts to come and carry them away. He tried to turn his head away from them, but there were just too many. He ducked out of the cold into the last remaining tavern, one where the owner hadn’t succumbed to the black death. One where luck had smiled just enough to keep the sickness out.

Lawrence made his way to the counter and waved down Vinny, ordering his usual glass of whisky. Vinny was solemn as he poured Lawrence his drink.

“Who this time?” Lawrence asked.

“My sister.”

“I’m sorry,” Lawrence said, but the words were so hollow. They’d come to lose all meaning over the past year. So many souls gone. So many bodies in the street. One eventually ran out of sorrow and was left only with the desire for preservation.

Vinny saw the emptiness to Lawrence’s words, but he just nodded and left the man alone with his drink. 

Hours passed by and Lawrence was several drinks deep when she walked up to him.

“Any room for a fellow mourner?”

Lawrence turned to see a goddess in black. She was dressed finer than anyone in that tavern had a right to; her dress made up of lace and delicate patterns. Expensive looking bobbles draped across her ears and neck; her fingers weighed down by gaudy rings. Her hair like night skies was loose around her shoulders, the only part of her that didn’t look proper. It made no sense for someone who looked like her to be in this lowlife tavern in the middle of the night. But Lawrence was too weary to question it. 

“What is it that you think I’m mourning?” He asked.

“Everyone,” she said. “Everything. Life. The world as we knew it.”  


He couldn’t argue with her, so he nodded to the empty seat beside him. She smiled and sat down, her dress pooling out around her. 

“I don’t want a drink,” she told Lawrence. “I just want someone to talk to.”  


Lawrence nodded to the mystery of a woman before him and she smiled again and began to talk. Her name was Adelheid, and she was from a wealthy family of some rank that Lawrence didn’t understand. Her sisters had all died of the plague, leaving her the last hope to marry the family into a good title. _As if such a thing matters anymore,_ she said with a scoff, accepting the drink he insisted on ordering for her. She didn’t let him pay though, she slipped off one of her heavy rings and passed it to Vinny. _Don’t let the wine stop flowing,_ she said to him. Vinny gave a weak twitch of his lips, in another time long ago, Adelheid’s words would’ve made him smile. Now all that was left was the ghost of joy spread across his mouth.

As the evening turned into early morning and Adelheid had told every bit of her story that she could tell, Lawrence listening intently the entire time, she concluded her epic with: 

“I’m so lonely. So achingly lonely.”  


“As am I,” Lawrence said. He had no one. His entire family was gone. There had never been much money to begin with in the printing trade, but the death that ran rampant throughout the streets had swallowed that up along with the souls of each and every one of his loved ones. He ached so awfully, so violently, that he began to feel jealous of the bodies that cluttered the street; at least their suffering was done.

“Living is hard now,” Adelheid said. “So much harder than before and it was never easy to begin with.” Lawrence nodded. She reached out and pressed a jewel-clad palm to his knee, sending a shiver through his body. “There are rooms upstairs,” she said. “Take me to one.”

He did.

He loved her like he’d known her all his life. He drank down her screams like they were richer than the wine that had flowed from Vinny’s bottles. And when the waves of their bodies crashed they crashed together. After Adelheid laid down beside him, pressing her naked body against his in a way that made perfect sense. _The old world is gone,_ she whispered to him as the stars shown in through the small window of the dingy room. _Follow me into the new one._

And he did.

Endless days passed by Adelheid’s side. The rest of her family died, and the two were left completely, irrevocably alone. They relished in one another’s bodies. They basked in the other’s loneliness. And when the fated night came after six long months where Adelheid spoke against his skin as she rode his body like a wild animal those dreaded and violent words: _I love you,_ he did not hesitate in his response.

“I love you too.”

“How much?” She gasped as she rocked her hips against his.

“More than all the stars in the sky.”

And he did. He truly did.

And then six more months passed and the veil of luck that cloaked Vinny’s tavern finally fell. Vinny fell down behind the bar one night, a bottle of port slipping from his hand and smashing into pieces as it hit the floor. The red wine pooling around him like blood. The death was swift. They buried him three nights later. Lawrence and Adelheid were the only ones left living to attend.

“I cannot bear this anymore,” Adelheid said.

“We must,” Lawrence insisted. “This is all a story that someone must tell.”

“What a grand ambition to think we will be the ones to tell it.”  


It was. Even he didn’t believe the words as they left his lips. But Adelheid did not argue him, she just followed him back to the tavern that now lay abandoned, up the stairs and into bed.

They squandered what little money they had left, hiding out in the tavern that was as dead as Vinny’s. They barred themselves from the outside world, thinking that they could wait out the death banging down the doors. But of course they failed.

When Adelheid rolled over one morning, her face showing the tell-tale signs of the end. Lawrence wept as he held her but she just pressed a palm to his cheek, her hand barren of every ring it had once bore, and said, _I think I have to go now, my love._

He held her till the end. Until there wasn’t a single bit of breath left in her body. He buried her alone, even the grave keeper had become a body in the street. 

Lawrence Orion went back to the tavern that was ripe with sick and he drank himself into oblivion and somehow he survived it all.

The day came when the death ended, and the world slowly began to return to how it had once been, only somehow better. The plague stripped the world of it’s old skin like a snake shedding it’s dead shell, leaving behind a perfect shape of what once was. There were remnants of the old world, but everything else was new. Art. Music. Theatre. Food. People. The world had changed, and Adelheid wasn’t there to see it. 

He saw her everywhere. He felt her in the air. He saw her in the stars. He drank bottle after bottle of wine thinking he could somehow drown himself deep enough to find her in the depths of his ocean of despair. 

And after another year he could no longer bear it. He took what little coin he had and sought out a wise woman. _You can see her again,_ she told him around sage-soaked lips and tongue. _But you must leave now. Leave and when you reach the door, you must become something new. Then you will come back again._

He asked her what door and she told him, _You will know it when you see it._

_But what of Adelheid?_ He begged her.

_She will find you,_ the woman had whispered to him, the scent of lavender and lemon on her breath. _But you will have to wait a very long time._

_What if I don’t go through the door?_ He asked.

The woman shook her head. _Then you will never see her again. A soul like hers doesn’t stay dead for long. But time moves differently when you’re dead. It will feel only like moments to her, it will be centuries for you._

He dug his nails into his palms until they bled. _But I will see her again?  
_

The woman nodded.

And he was resigned.

His neck snapped quickly. A painter staying a room down the hall found his body.

When Lawrence reached the door a woman named Juno opened it.

“What do you want?” She asked.

“To be something new. I need to go back.”

“Everyone wants to go back. What’s so special back there with the breathers?” He said nothing and the woman sighed. She’d seen thousands and thousands of eyes just like his. “Whoever they are, they will be different. They’ll wear a different name, a different life.”

“But the same heart,” he insisted. Juno nodded. “The same heart.” So he signed the papers and when she told him to choose a new name, he thought of the stars. 

He promised Juno three centuries of servitude in return for the powers unlike any man could comprehend. But he grew anxious and impatient, and his want made him stronger than any spirit Juno had dealt with before. She warned him to know his place. He did not listen.

He clawed his way out, found the door and dragged himself back through. 

He waited a long time.

Years. Decades. Centuries.

He was summoned and he terrified and scared and haunted and killed. He passed the time. He waited and he wanted and he ached. His grave moved from Europe to America for some historical purpose he didn’t understand and didn’t care to. He watched the house on the hill be built. He watched the different families come and go. And after another century he gave up.

Then they called him.

And they forgot to put him back.

And then a girl walked into the attic and saw him.

She had no idea who he was or what his name was. She had no memory of him at all. But he’d know her anywhere, he’d clawed his way out of hell in hopes of seeing her again. 

And now she laid next to him in bed in a hotel room in Hawaii. 


	7. Impossible to Believe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How’d you like to be a mermaid?”
> 
> —Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian

Lydia stared at beetlejuice, dumbfounded. “You expect me to believe all of that?”

“I don’t expect you to, I just hope you do.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Lydia said, rolling over to face away from him, but he reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist, dragging her back towards him. When she was facing him again he leaned in close, his words harsh and desperate.

“You think anyone’s born a conman? A liar? A villain? No it’s something you learn. You don’t believe me because of how I am now, but I wasn’t always like this.”  


“So what? I’m supposed to believe that once upon a time the big bad ghost in the attic had a heart of gold and lost it when his lady love died?”

“I lost it after centuries of waiting. Do you understand how long I’ve been alone?” There was a beat of silence between them. “You do,” he said firmly, squeezing his hand around her hip, pulling her closer to him again. “You get what it feels like to be invisible. To be waiting for something you’ve convinced yourself will never come.”

“So what?” Lydia whispered, transfixed by his stare. “You think I was waiting for you all my life?”

“Yes.”  


Without waiting for her to say something his lips were smashing against hers and then he was on top of her and her legs were around him and they were drowning in each others bodies again.

“I don’t believe you,” Lydia gasped as he moved his mouth down to kiss her neck.

“Liar,” he teased.

“Fuck you.”  


“Awe, babe,” he purred. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.” He slid his hand down from her hip to rest between her legs. “You love it when I fuck you, Lydia. Just admit it.”

“No,” she gasped as he began to move his hand against her, “I don’t.”

“Then why does it keep happening?”

“Because you’re a pervert.”  


Beetlejuice looked down at her to see her smiling. When their eyes locked onto one another Lydia couldn’t help but laugh and then he laughed too and then the two were wrapped up in each others arms drowning in the sound of their laughter. The whole time he kept his hand against her, beginning to slowly move his fingers inside of her and then picking up momentum as their laughter turned to moaning.

“Let me fuck you,” he growled. Lydia said nothing, just rocked her hips against his hand. “Lydia,” he growled into her neck, biting down roughly, causing her to cry out.

“Okay,” she panted.

“Say you want me to,” he commanded.

“I want you to fuck me,” she obeyed. She realized she had given in completely. She _did_ want him, there was no point in denying it anymore. 

Beetlejuice grinned as he shifted to thrust inside her but at the last second pulled back. “Wha—” Lydia began to ask what he was doing when he wrapped his hands around her ankles and flipped her over onto her stomach with a squeak and then reached forward to grab her hips and pull her back. Lydia gasped again and then he was inside her once more and waves of pleasure louder than the one lapping at the beach outside the window began to wash over her again. 

The two moved together as they always did, and as Lydia got closer and closer she shifted up onto her knees, pressing her back against his chest. Beetlejuice wrapped a hand around her stomach to keep her steady, and then wrapped the other one around her throat, squeezing just enough to cause her to gasp yet again; it was becoming his favorite sound.

“Say my name, baby” he whispered in her ear as she reached her peak.

“Beetlejuice!” She screamed as the two rode the wave all the way to shore.

* * *

“Come down to the beach with me.”

Lydia rolled over in bed and took a moment to register where she was. In a hotel. With Beetlejuice. Who she’d just slept with for the third time. Her mind was still struggling to wrap itself around this information. 

“Why?” She asked. “It’s three in the morning.”

He held his hand out to her. “Come on.”  


Lydia didn’t have the energy to argue or question him further. She rolled over and got out of bed. “I’m not dressed,” she said. But before the words were fully out of her mouth she was suddenly wearing a black bikini covered in the pattern of spiderwebs. When she took in how Beetlejuice had decided to dress himself—in yellow Hawaiian swim trunks—she laughed. He ginned at her then wrapped his arms around her and transported them down to the beach. 

It was chilly outside and the moon was high in the sky. Lydia shivered a bit and then took in the roaring ocean before them. 

“It’s going to be freezing.”  


He wrapped his hands around her waist from behind her and leaned down, resting his chin on her shoulder. “I’ll keep you warm, come on.”

He lead the two of them into the water, deeper and deeper. The water got rougher and Lydia was beginning to get nervous. When they were so far out that it was too deep to stand, Lydia held onto him tightly, opening her mouth to tell him just how little confidence she had in her own swimming abilities when a tingling sensation spread through her legs. 

She looked down into the dark water and tried to kick her legs up, when she did, it wasn’t two skinny pale legs that broke the surface, but a tail. A green mermaid tale. Lydia gasped. “Oh my god!”

She looked up at Beetlejuice who was smirking. “Pretty great huh?”  


“What the fuck kind of powers do you have?” She asked, laughing in disbelief. “What is the limit?”  


“I don’t know,” he said mischievously. “Let’s find out.”  


He dove beneath the water, taking her with him. She opened her mouth to scream, but water filled her throat and she thrashed against his arm, convinced they were going to drown when she suddenly realized that she didn’t just _have_ a mermaid tale. She _was_ a mermaid. She could breathe underwater.

She looked at Beetlejuice who was laughing and shaking his head. “You should’ve seen your face.”  


She reached out and smacked his shoulder. “Fucking asshole,” she said, her voice sounded disjointed and far away against the ocean water around them. 

Beetlejuice just chuckled, holding onto her hand and leading them lower and lower beneath the surface of the ocean. Lydia tried to swim back up to the surface a few times but he held on tight to her hand. “Relax,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”  


Lydia tried to relax but it isn’t everyday one fucks a poltergeist and then turns into a mermaid with them to go explore the depths of the ocean. 

Beetlejuice lead them deeper than Lydia thought was wise. _Surely there’s a time limit on magic mermaid powers?_ She thought.

They reached a shipwreck and Lydia’s mouth hung open.

“Pretty amazing, huh?” He asked, clearly seeking her praise.

“Did you put this here, or are we just conveniently discovering this?”

“Babe, I’m honored that you have so much faith in my powers, but no I did not conjure an entire shipwreck. This isn’t even really here. You’re just able to see it because you’re a seer.”  


“I’m a what now?”  


“You see ghosts, kid, put two and two together.”

Lydia slapped his shoulder again at his tone and again he laughed. 

“So it’s a ghost ship?”

He nodded. “Wanna go investigate.”

“This is so beyond absurd,” Lydia said. “It’s like we’re in a scene from a Tim Burton movie.”  


“Oh really? Would that mean Johnny Depp plays my role?”  


“No, he’s too good looking.”

Beetlejuice took in her own mischievous grin and then lunged at her. She laughed as he playfully threw her over his shoulder, an odd sight to see since they were deep underwater. “You’re such a brat,” he said, dropping her back down in his arms, wrapping his arms around her back and pulling her close.

“And you’re a creep.”  


He kissed her. “You love it.”

He waited for her to contradict his statement, when she didn’t, he took it as a small victory. 

“Come on,” he said said. “Let’s explore the ghost ship.”  


The two swam lower until the reached the sunken ship that was nothing more now than a collection of memories. They peered in windows, and swan around the bow. Lydia saw a woman in white float aimlessly down one of the corridors. 

“Best not to disturb her,” Beetlejuice said. “Ghosts like this, they’re…too far gone.”

Lydia nodded. “Let’s go back,” she said. “I don’t want to look at them like we’re in a zoo. It feels…wrong.”  


Beetlejuice nodded and the two began to swim back to the surface. When they broke the surface Lydia felt the rushing tingling sensation return to her legs and then the heavy feeling of her tail was replaced with the lightness of her legs. Beetlejuice kept her in his arms as he swam them both to shore. When they reached the beach Lydia laid down on her back, just out of reach of the waves and laid down to look up at the stars. Beetlejuice laid down beside her.

They laid like that in silence for several moments before Beetlejuice turned to look at Lydia. She looked exactly as she had all those years ago when he’d first laid eyes on her. He felt the same way now as he did then, and he knew in that moment seeing her there beside him drenched in saltwater and starlight that he always would.

“Come away with me.”

Lydia turned to look at him, confused. “What? What do you mean 'come away' with you? Away where?”  


“Anywhere. Just come away with me.”  


“Beetlejuice, you’re being ridiculous.” 

He reached out and took her hand in his. “No I’m not. I don’t want to lose you again.”  


“I’m not going anywhere. I’m right next to you.”  


“But you will. I lost you back at Winter River.”

“That was your own fault.”  


“I lost you before that.”  


Lydia narrowed her eyes. “That never happened.”  


“Lydia,” he said, his voice taking on a new desperate tone she had never heard from him before. It was disturbingly human. “You know it did. You _know_ it. Why were you so comfortable around me right away? You were seventeen and I was a random ghost living in Adam’s model. How did you know you could trust me?”

“I didn’t trust you.”  


“You summoned me.”  


“I was desperate.”  


“Stop it,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Stop trying to rationalize everything and deny everything I say. There was a reason you were able to see me when no one else could and you _know_ it. You could see me because you knew me. You always have.”  


Lydia was silent for a moment. “You talk about impossible things as if they’re so simple.”  


“Is it so impossible to believe that I love you?”  


A deafening silence fell over them. It drowned out the waves, it blocked out the moon and every single star. There was nothing between them now except that four letter word.

“You love me?” She whispered.

“I always have.” Lydia said nothing. 

He moved closer to her but as he did, Lydia got to her feet and started to walk away, back up the beach. Beetlejuice moved after her, grabbing her hands in his and spinning her around to face him.

“Don’t go back, Lydia,” he said. “You’re miserable. I can see it. It’s been years and you still haven’t found anyone who can appreciate you for who you are. You haven’t found someone who knows you for you.”  


“You don’t know me.”

“ _Yes,”_ he growled. “I do.” 

Lydia wanted to argue with him but she had no words. She didn’t want to believe his crazy story about meeting her during the black plague. It was too phenomenal. But so was seeing ghosts and turning into mermaids and exploring ghost shipwrecks. So was sleeping in coffins the size of spacious bedrooms and walking through walls. So was absolutely everything about him. 

Lydia knew deep down in the darkest corners of her heart that he was right. She had never _truly_ been afraid of him. It was easy to talk to him all those years ago just as it was easy to spend all of this time with him now. Being with Beetlejuice _was_ easy. Being with Beetlejuice made sense. 

“I have a job,” she said.

“You hate it.”  


She had never told him that, but he was right again. She did. It was mundane. Passionless. Draining.

“My dad…” she trailed off.

“Has never seen you. Not really.” Lydia was silent again. He tugged on her hands pulling her closer. “The world is full of horribly boring happy people who are too afraid to face their own sadness. Too scared to leave the sunlight and face the dark. You’re not like any of them, you are so much better. So much _more._ You don’t just walk towards the darkness, you befriend the shadows you find there. A girl’s sadness is a powerful thing. It’s because of all that that you make them uncomfortable. They can’t bear to see someone so young be brave enough to face everything they fear.”  


“There’s nothing remarkable about being sad,” Lydia whispered.

“Yes there is. You feel every emotion, you acknowledge every painful moment. You do what others cannot.”

“Which is what?”

“You see the world for what it is. Seeing the light and the dark, feeling every bit of both—that’s humanity, Lydia. You’re more human than anyone else. I see in your eyes how they treat you. I see how invisible you feel.” He reached a hand up to cup behind her neck. “You will _never_ be invisible to me. I will never try to force you to be happy or try and save you from your sadness. You’re as dark as me. You always were. And I’m as spiteful as you.”

“I don’t understand,” Lydia said, shaking her head gently, fighting back tears. “You’re this otherworldly being with cosmic powers. How can you fall in love with me?”

“I fell in love with you centuries ago. Did you think a little thing like time would make me stop?”  


“I’m alive, Beetlejuice,” Lydia said. “I have a life, I'm supposed to live it.”  


“I can give you a life,” he said. “If you let me.”

“Where? The Netherworld?”  


“Oh babe, there’s so much more to existence than life and death. Earth and The Netherworld.”

“What else is there?”  


“The stars.”  


Lydia shook her head, pulling her hands away from his. She tried not to register the hurt in his eyes. It was too human. Too _familiar._

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to go. I can’t do this.”

She turned and walked away, leaving him alone on the beach.


	8. Twenty Seconds or Twenty Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Together forever, baby.”
> 
> -Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter! Hope yall enjoy the conclusion of this ridiculous little fanfic <3

Lydia paused halfway up the beach realizing she couldn’t very well walk through town in nothing but a bikini. As if reading her thoughts, from down where he was still sitting by the water, Beetlejuice magicked her back into her typical funeral garb. She sighed a bit in relief, but the relief was short lived. She looked back to where he was sitting by the tide, the moon shinning down on him. She wanted to run back to him. To fall into his arms and forget the world.

_You’re insane,_ she told herself. 

He was a centuries old ghost that had tormented her family and tried to marry her when she was still a teenager. He was forceful and ridiculous and delusional and convinced he’d known her in another life. Her wanting him was supposed to be innapropriate and wrong. Something for modern-day storytellers to look down upon. Something for english students to psychoanalyze. And yet her stomach ached with the idea of taking one more step away from him.

It had only been two nights but it felt like two years. When she’d met him back in Winter River it had only been two nights but it had felt like a lifetime. What was that Walk the Moon song she liked? _Ships pass in the night. I knew you in a past life._

Lydia inhaled slowly, shaking her head and looking down at her boots. She was supposed to have grown out of her morbid fantasies. She had a job and a life and she was supposed to live it.

She left Beetlejuice alone on the beach and went home.

Her dad hadn’t even noticed she’d been gone.

* * *

Lydia got off work and stopped outside the office and looked down the street to her apartment. She paused, shifting her camera bag from shoulder to shoulder, looking inside to check she had everything; just looking for an excuse not to go home. To not have to sit in the silence of being ignored. 

She looked in the other direction where in the distance she could see the 24 hour diner light glowing, she headed that way. 

As the bell dinged when she entered the establishment her breath caught in her throat, but she wasn’t entirely surprised. She walked slowly down the black and white tiled floor toward the farther booth where a man in a striped suit was sitting. Since she’d made him visible to the living world she could see the unease in the waitress’s eyes at his appearance as she refilled his coffee. Lydia smiled a bit to herself. It was nice not to be the oddest looking one in the room. 

The waitress stopped in front of Lydia and gave her a warm smile, relieved to see a face with more life in it. “Hey honey,” she said. “Lydia, right?” 

“Oh, yeah,” Lydia said, genuinely smiling. She forgot that the whole world wasn’t like New York and that being a regular here meant being remembered. 

“What can I get ya?”  


“Oh um, I don’t know yet. I’m here to meet my friend.” She nodded towards Beetlejuice and she could see the waitress stiffen. “Don’t worry,” Lydia said, leaning in towards the woman, “he’s not as scary as he looks.” Lydia stood up straight again and walked around the waitress without another word.

Beetlejuice had his back to her as she rounded the side of the booth and quietly slid in across from him. He stirred his coffee that she wondered if he could actually drink or it he was just putting on a show. 

“Hi,” she said.

He looked up from his drink. “Hey, babe.”

“Were you…” her words trailed off, she didn’t want to assume the wrong thing and then have him laugh at her. 

“Waiting for you?” She nodded. “Of course.” Lydia exhaled a tiny bit in relief. “Do you want any coffee?” He asked her. Lydia shook her head. “Food?”

“No,” Lydia said softly. “I just…wanted to see you.”

His expression had been painfully blank up until that moment but those six words changed everything. Lydia saw the dimmest of light glint across his eyes as his hand twitched against his coffee mug as he was trying to contain his excitement and appear disinterested. He knew that after last night that was a hopeless attempt but the Ghost with the Most wasn’t used to being the vulnerable one. 

“Want to go on a walk?”  


Lydia nodded. Beetlejuice stood up and offered her his hand. She took it and he lead her out of the diner and into the chilly night air. They walked a few blocks in silence, her warm hand wrapped up in his cold one. After awhile he turned to an old building and then back to Lydia. “Come with me.”

Lydia gave him a sideways expression in confusion as he magicked open the door to the old building that lead to a rickety staircase. 

“Come on,” he said, looking back at her. Lydia hesitated. He sighed. “I ain’t gonna let anything bad happen to ya.” Lydia met his gaze, still feeling uneasy. He squeezed her hand.  “Babe, I promise.”

“Okay,” Lydia said quietly and then she let him lead her up the stairs.

The old stairs wound up several stories until they reached a door that lead them out onto the roof. Lydia exhaled in awe as she tilted her head back to look up at the stars. There were so many tonight she felt like she could reach out and touch one. Beetlejuice stood next to her, watching her take in the night sky and he felt just a little bit proud of himself for being able to bring this kind of joy to her.

Lydia’s gaze dropped from the sky to where Beetlejuice was looking at her. “Look,” she said with a slight smile as she pointed back up to the sky. “The Orion constellation.” Beetlejuice didn’t say anything. Lydia laughed softly, the sound was melodic to Beetlejuice’s ears. “Look there,” she said, leaning into him a bit and pointing again at the stars. “See that bright one?” He nodded. She turned to look at him again and he let his eyes lock on hers. “Betelgeuse.”  


He broke a smile and the two just gazed at each other under the stars. Everything in the world felt correct in that moment. Everything made sense as a girl and a ghost stood drenched in starlight on an abandoned roof. 

“It does feel like I know you,” Lydia said softly, her smile softening into something else. 

“Babe,” he said, turning to face her, taking her other hand in his. 

“You know, my mom always believed in reincarnation. My mom was a huge Taylor Swift fan. Do you know who Taylor Swift is?”  


He chuckled a bit. “Yes, doll, I know who Taylor Swift is.”

“Well she has this song called _Lover,”_ Beetlejuice raised an eyebrow and Lydia did her best to pretend she hadn’t noticed. “In the song she sings _have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years._ There’s also this other song from the _Twilight_ movies—”

“Ya gonna ask me now if I know what _Twilight_ is?”

He smirked and Lydia freed one of her hands to shove him, which only made him laugh again. 

“Shut up, you’re dead I don’t know how often you get out. 

" I haunt houses, babe, and people tend to watch TV and listen to music.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Can I finish what I was saying? I’m trying to give a soliloquy here.”

Beetlejuice did his best to swallow another smoke as he gestured to her. “Go on.”  


“Okay, _so,”_ she eyed him again to make sure he wasn’t laughing and this time he wasn’t so she relaxed a bit and tried to find her words again. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “There’s this song in the movies and the lyrics in this one part are _I have died everyday waiting for you. Darling don’t be afraid I have loved you for a thousand years.”_

She opened her eyes, expecting to see the ghoul laughing at her, but he wasn’t, he was staring at her intently, his eyes glistening in a way they never had before. 

“Lydia,” he said softly. 

“It doesn’t make sense that I was never afraid of you. I wasn’t even afraid to marry you I was just honestly really annoyed because you were being so fucking ridiculous about it and I had stuff to do the next day.” At that the poltergeist smirked again and Lydia did too. “It doesn’t make sense that even the Maitlands couldn’t see you without summoning you and I can. It doesn’t make sense that I realized it was you under Danny’s skin. It all makes no sense at all unless everything you told me is true.”  


Beetlejuice just kept his intent gaze set on Lydia as she looked down again. “I don’t love you,” she said softly, feeling his hands stiffen in her own. She looked back up at him. “But I could learn to.”  


Beetlejuice stared at her for several silent moments. “Do you mean that?”

She nodded. 

“C’mere,” he said, walking her over to the railing. 

“No, that’s okay,” Lydia said, trying to stop him. 

But he didn’t notice her apprehension as he lead them over to the edge of the roof. Lydia tried to quell the anxiety swelling in her stomach as she watched Beetlejuice hop up on the railing and hold a hand out to her. She shook her head.

“Babe, I already promised you I won’t let you fall.”

Lydia wanted to run and hide but she pushed her fears away and took his hand. She gasped softly as she took in how high up they were but he wrapped his hands around her waist and held her close to him. 

“You can see the whole town from up here,” he said, smoothing down her hair as it blew in the light breeze. “You can see where the ocean meets the horizon.”

Lydia tried to look where he meant, but her head began to swirl with memories and she felt like she was about to burst out of her skin.

“No,” she whispered, her chest feeling tight. “I can’t do this.”

Without another word she ripped herself from his arms and practically fell back down onto the roof.

“Lydia?” He said, concerned, hopping down after her.

But Lydia already felt the panic attack coming on and she didn’t want him to see her like this. She shook her head and turned and ran for the stairs. 

He ran after her, appearing on the landing as she ran down. She stopped short when she realized he was there to meet her. “Babe,” he said as calmly as he could. “What’s wrong?”

But her head was still spinning, the flashbacks were still too strong. She tried to push past him and continue down the stairs but of course it was all in vain. He wrapped her up in his arms. “Let me go,” she said, trying to not sound as hysterical as she felt.

“No,” he said, his voice turning into a growl.

“I can’t be here right now.”  


She tried to push him off, but instead he just dragged them backwards, through the wall, into darkness until they came tumbling out into his coffin. 

When Lydia realized where they were she let her camera bag fall from her shoulders as she spun around until she was facing Beetlejuice again. “Get me out of here,” she said, the panic in her chest in full bloom. “I need to be alone right now.”

“No, babe,” he said, taking a step towards her. “What you need is to tell me what’s going on.”  


She spun around again, frantic now.

“Darling there ain’t no door, the only way out is through me so just tell me why you’re so upset all of a sudden.”  


Her mind had fully descended into a panic attack. Lydia ran to the far wall and tried to push as if she could make a door appear. Beetlejuice watched her do this with another wall and by the third wall he strode over to her and pressed his entire weight against her, his hands over her hands, his mouth right by her neck, the entire weight of his body pressing against her and keeping her still.

“ _Lydia,”_ he growled. “You have to tell me what’s wrong. I’m not letting you leave until you do. I’m not leaving you alone like this.”  


Lydia felt her breathing turn shallow and she tried to latch onto his words to anchor herself. “I’m having a panic attack,” she whispered.

Beetlejuice closed his eyes and sighed, gripping her hands tighter under his. 

“Why?”

“Being on the railing it made me…” she took a shaky breath, “remember.”

Beetlejuice gritted his teeth, leaning his head forward so that his forehead rested against her hair. “Remember what?”

“The last time…I tried to kill myself.”  


Beetlejuice went completely still against Lydia.

“Do you hate me now?” She whispered.

“No,” he said back without missing a beat. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I hate you for that? Hell, babe that’s why I’m here with you right now.”

“Because,” she took another shaky breath. “You watched me die all those years ago.”  


He laughed in a cold and almost scared type of way. “Babe I’m not mad that you didn’t know before this week that you're the reincarnation of my lost love. I’m upset that you’re upset.”

“Are you gonna ask why I wanted to kill myself?”  


“I’m assuming it’s the same as the time we met,” he said. “You were sad.”  


“Saying it like that makes it sound stupid,” she said, resting her own forehead against the wall.

He sighed, feeling exasperated, like he wasn’t helping her enough. It had been centuries since he’d gotten the chance to care for anyone like this, and he knew then that if he messed it up Lydia would walk away from him, most likely for good this time. 

He dragged a hand away from the wall and ran it down the side of her body and wrapped it around her waist, burying his head in the crook of her shoulder. “ _Babe,”_ he rasped out. “Being sad isn’t stupid.” He pulled her closer to his body and slowly peeled one of her hands off the wall and then the next until he was cradling her to his chest. “Come lay down.”

“I don’t…want to have sex right now.”

He spun her around to face him, still keeping a hand on the small of her back to steady her. “I’m not trying to force ya to have sex with me, I’m trying to take care of you.” He saw the unease in her eyes mixed with the residual panic. He reached up and stroked her face with the back of his knuckles. “I know you’re used to taking care of yourself. So am I, but would ya humor me and let me try and take care of _you?”_

He let his hand rest against her face and his eyes gaze into hers. Finally he saw her relax a bit under his touch and nod. He lead her to the bed and she paused in front of it. 

“Are ya gonna lay down?”  


Lydia spun around to face him and without thinking, or second guessing herself, she wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on tip toe and smashed her lips against his. He didn’t hesitate in wrapping his arms around her back and lifting her off the floor to press her against him and deepen the kiss. The two stayed like that for several moments before they broke apart so Lydia could breathe. He kept his eyes on hers as he slowly lowered her back down to the floor. 

“Babe,” he said softly. “What was that for?”

She managed a weak smile, shaking her head. “I don’t know. Because I wanted to.”  


This time he smiled and then gestured to the bed. Lydia got in and rolled over under the blanket when she realized he wasn’t getting in too she rolled back over. 

“Beetlejuice,” she said softly. “Don’t be dramatic and sleep on the couch. We’re not a married couple in the middle of a fight.” Lydia realized after the words had left her mouth how ironic they sounded. Beetlejuice laughed then went and crawled into bed beside her.

* * *

It carried on like that for weeks. The summer came and left, and every night Lydia fell asleep in Beetlejuice’s arms in a warm bed in a coffin nestled beneath the earth. Sometimes they stayed all night in the diner, talking and laughing over black coffee and cherry pie and the waitress who they learned was named Kerry, came around to Beetlejuice’s appearance and unsettling energy. They still went to the punk club where they’d found each other again and sometimes Kerry came with them.

They still swam in the ocean and gazed up at the stars. Lydia dragged Beetlejuice to the movie theatre and the bookstore and it became a long-running joke between them where Lydia would saunter over to him in the aisle of the bookstore and hold up a copy of something like _Harry Potter_ and say “Have you ever heard of this?” Or as they stood outside the movie theatre that only played reruns she’d point to the marquee where it would read _Die Hard,_ and say “Do you know what that is?” And every time he’d laugh and pull her in close.

Fall came and Charles Deetz was headed back to New York. When Lydia told him she was staying he didn’t question it, he felt relieved and Lydia knew he would feel that way, but it hurt to see it painted across his face nonetheless. 

“My father’s going back to New York,” she told Beetlejuice as they sat in the diner playing Uno over slices of apple pie.

“Ya gonna miss him?”

“No,” she said flatly. “But…”  


Beetlejuice looked up from the card he’d just set down. “What?”  


“I don’t want to live in that apartment alone.” There was a silence between them.

“Babe,” he said softly. “You know I’d follow you anywhere.”

She smiled at him, then set down her cards and got up and walked to slide in next to him on his side of the booth. She took his face in her hands and kissed him, whispering against his lips, “ _I love you.”_  


The fall ended and winter opened it’s doors. It was odd to Lydia to endure a warmer winter and not one bogged down by bitter New York City winds. She went to her job that she found painfully mundane during the day and came home to Beetlejuice reading books in _their_ apartment at night. 

He’d hold up an old copy of _Canterbury Tales_ and ask her, “Have you heard of this?” She'd laugh and crawl into his lap. And things continued this way for a year. 

One night in bed as the summer was beginning to roll back around, Lydia woke up from a dream. A dream that every moment more she spent awake became more and more faded until it was as muddled as an impressionist painting. But what whisps she could hang onto smelled like red wine and death. Tasted like cold foreign air and felt like funerals. It wasn’t remembering exactly, but wishing she could remember. 

She looked at the cruel and wicked and wonderful ghost asleep beside her and gently nudged him awake. He opened his eyes slowly taking in the glowing look on her face.

“Babe,” he said, half-awake. “What is it?”

“You’re my best friend,” she whispered.

He smiled, not quite understanding her but leaned in and kissed her anyway. 

“Beetlejuice, I don’t want to stay here.”

“Okay,” he said. “Where do you want to go.”  


She rolled over and let him wrap his arms around her. She shifted so that she could whisper in his ear. “ _Take me to the stars.”_

* * *

No one ever saw Lydia Deetz again, not in this lifetime anyway. She became the stuff of legends and bedtime stories. Her and Beetlejuice became a myth of the island they’d once inhabited. Even the ghosts from the shipwreck would murmur amongst each other if the merpeople they swore they saw that night were ever really there.

Of course Charles Deetz grieved his daughter, it was surprisingly his wife, Delia, who suspected that Lydia wasn’t dead. She never told anyone this. But she knew that while she’d never see Lydia again, it didn’t mean Lydia was truly gone.

Centuries came and went and the memory of the ghost and the girl was lost to time.

But they’re still out there somewhere.

They’re still in love.

And most importantly, they’re not invisible anymore.


End file.
